


Forced Teaming

by Katherine



Category: Valdemar Series - Mercedes Lackey
Genre: AU, Dark, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-22
Updated: 2010-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-13 18:02:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/140135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katherine/pseuds/Katherine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She knew also, all too well, that she was being chased and once found would be carried away with none to come to her rescue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forced Teaming

**Author's Note:**

  * For [isabeau](https://archiveofourown.org/users/isabeau/gifts).



She huddled against the wall of the small cave, pressed hard enough that when she moved she could feel the catch of rough rock on her clothes. She didn't move much, pretending that if she stayed still as a small prey-animal in its burrow she would be hidden and safe.

But she knew the cave wasn't far off the path, and that she was barely concealed. She knew also, all too well, that she was being chased and once found would be carried away with none to come to her rescue.

Rayli jerked up, nearly bashing her head against rock, as she heard the chiming sound of Companion hooves on stone. He had come for her.

Five hammering heartbeats later, the Companion was a tall shape at the entrance to the small cave.

* * *

He was still there, blocking the exit. Blocking the light, for the most part, leaving her huddled on bare rock in dimness.

"I don't want this," she said, her voice already gone raspy from repetition. She wasn't, by then, speaking in much louder than a whisper.She had already tried shouting; that had made as little difference.

She gave in and tried mindspeech, repeating her words yet again. In twisting shame, she found herself beginning to sob.

 _:Your wanting isn't what matters,:_ he told her. _:You will be a Herald. You are already mine.:_ Then, chillingly, _:Do you hear me this time?:_

"I heard you the first time," she whispered to cold stone. "That's why I ran."

Her running had been candlemarks ago, and she was aching and cold from it. Panicky, desperate, she had been on her feet, boots slipping in the mud of the forest track, as soon as the eerie intensity of his gaze holding her still had broken.

She had rejected him from that first moment. When she was plunged into blue and it felt not like the sapphire glory of fable, but the shock of icy water where she'd drown.

* * *

The first night of her journey with him (the second night since she'd been Chosen and taken) they passed in a Waystation. When the distraction of setting up food and warmth was done, she considered running again.

Instead, she tried more of the reasoning that had already failed, staying by her Companion in the dim light as, whispering, she lay out all he was determined to take her from.

She even admitted his name, as if that might communicate her sincerity. "Lulh, are you going to tell me this is for the best? I'll come to want this life with you?"

 _:This is the life you will have.:_

She could have found some way to answer if he'd tried to comfort her, or assure her.

Instead, he only kept telling her she was his, and Valdemar's. His Choice of her was made.

* * *

The third night, when Lulh insisted they stop at an inn, was worse than sleeping rough.

She'd been told there was a room for her. "But of course you'll want to see to your Companion first," the inn-keeper said.

Under his expectant look, Rayli did as assumed, walking from the yard to the indicated loosebox. She stood by her Companion there, before reluctantly, slow as if playing a part, putting one hand to his side and stroking down.

 _:You should fetch a grooming-kit and groom me properly.:_

She did, but tugged his mane with the comb in small, ridiculous defiance. She had more sense than to dare do the same to his tail, within easy kicking distance of his rear hooves.

* * *

Her work of grooming him was all undone in the morning, when she came outside to find he was no longer in the stable, but out on the paddock. He was rolling on his back in the grass, and she had to turn from the sight of him, so wrongly carefree.

And yet, despite herself, she clung to him on the remainder of the long ride. Lulh was more familiar than the places they passed through, and everything beyond him was blurred by the speed of the ride to Haven.

Make the best of it, she told herself. Find a place, make friends, enjoy the bustle of the capital. Revel in the adventures to come. Don't ever think about the life torn away.

She would shape herself a new life to go forward in. But who would she be, there? No-one's sister, to be her little brothers' security and comfort. No-one's neighbour and friend, to walk with and whisper of a future. No-one's student: or rather, she would be the student to many teachers, none of them the teachers who had watched her grow up and helped her learn.

* * *

She fit herself into the routine of the Collegium easily enough. While she did get to know some of the other trainees, any connection among them was only superficial. The structure of the place and of the classes lent to little more. All the trainees were hemmed in by the over-vigilant supervision of the teachers and staff even on simple chores.

Rayli had the sense the teachers didn't want to know if the trainees wanted to be there. She wasn't sure if it was intuition or developing mental awareness, the stronger Gift they were told came with being Chosen.

Whatever the paths that had brought them, the trainees were there at the Collegium to learn, and concentrate on the bond with their Companions.

Hers was, she felt, already very much close enough a bond. She felt the weight of it every morning, as she woke to the scent of grass. At the very first she had thought (had tried to pretend to herself) that it was only imagining, or waking dreams.

She knew the awareness was real when the pattern became that each morning even before she opened her eyes, let alone turned to the small window, that she knew what the weather was, and if rain or dew lay on the Companions' Field...

She began to long for winter, the sharp edge of frost, even the shared ache of the cold ground under silver hooves. She pretended that the bond between her and Lulh was a brittle thing, and would snap with enough surrounding cold.

It would have snapped already, were her own cold thoughts enough.

* * *

The idea that none of them truly wished their lives had come to being Herald-Trainees... That was a thought for late at night, when she could feel Lulh sleeping, and still Rayli kept strongly barricaded within her own mind.

While she didn't know much of the other trainees, she suspected one of them was co-erced (forced) there as well. Byrs, the sweet-faced young boy. Something in his eyes...

She might even imagine that every single one of them was merely pretending. She knew already that even were that the case, there would be no admitting of it.

Once, the silence pressed her beyond bearing. In the scramble to get from a class at the far side of the Collegium to the Field, she had a moment when only Byrs was near her. She opened her mouth to say (cautiously, she would phrase it so carefully) some hint, and discovered she was literally unable to speak even that.

She had been given enough training, by then, to modulate her mindspeech. This time she didn't bother, shoving her angry, trapped state into Lulh's mind. Let him find her mental voice too loud/sharp/pressing. She would welcome his discomfort.

 _:I'm only here because of you.:_

 _:Yes.:_ His tone was cool, frustratingly unruffled, and final.


End file.
